These Burpee Workouts Will Strengthen And Sculpt Your Whole Bod Hella Fast
Few fitness moves elicit as many ~feelings~ as the burpee. Whether you love them, love to hate them...or just hate them, it's hard to argue with the fact that they are one of the most effective ways to transform your frame from head to toe lightening fast.
That's because burpees are a bodyweight strength exercise with a cardio kicker (that jump at the top will take your heart rate up a notch real quick). It's the ideal combo for losing fat and building muscle at the same time (a.k.a. changing your body composition), hence its appeal for expediting results. But there are better ways to reap these gains than just busting out a bunch of burpees, which would get boring after awhile and that'd likely lead to you not doing them regularly enough to really reap their benefits, which we'll get into below.
Instead, consider doing a burpee workout. It'll take the monotony out of the move—that goes double if you decide to throw some burpee variations into the mix too. Who knows, after trying out the three burpee workouts below, you might just find yourself learning to like them so much you're ready to do a 30-day burpee challenge.
Too soon? Okay, well, let's step back and start with everything you need to know—from what gains you stand to obtain by doing burpees, to the proper form you'll need to maximize your results, and the burpee workouts you'll want to begin adding to your fitness routine a few times per week.
Benefits Of Burpees
The major benefits of burpees, as mentioned above, are that the are a compound exercise, meaning that they work multiple muscle groups at once. Some of the main ones a burpee targets and recruits are your glutes, hammies, calves, abs, chest, back, shoulders, biceps, and triceps. Not bad for one move, no?
Activating all of these muscles at once is one of the main reasons why burpees are so effective at strengthening your bod and making your muscles pop. The other factor that adds to that equation is the cardio element of a burpee. Every time you hop your feet out to a plank or back under your bod—or jump off the floor—you're elevating your heart rate, which in turn helps you burn more calories. Sounds good right? Now, the next step if figuring out how to perfect your technique.
How To Do A Burpee
Start standing. Squat down to plant palms on mat and jump feet back into a plank position. Perform a push-up, then jump feet toward hands. Push down through heels to rise up and jump into the air, bringing hands over head. Land softly back on mat. That's one rep.
Burpee Workouts
Here are three simple (not to be confused with easy) burpee workouts to try at home. Either complete them on their own for a fast and furious cardio-strength sweat session or add 'em on to the end of any workout as a finisher that'll ensure you leave it all on your workout mat.
Death By Burpees
Don't let the name scare you away. This is super-popular CrossFit WOD (workout of the day). It's performed as an EMOM (every minute on the minute) style workout. For it, you'll start by doing one burpee at the start of minute one, then rest for the remainder of the time. At the start of minute two, you'll do two burpees. You'll continue to repeat this pattern of reps/rest until you're unable to do however many burpees are required for the timeframe—i.e. if you can't do 20 burpees in 20 minutes.
Burpee AMRAP Workout
Like WOD and EMOM, AMRAP is another fitness shorthand worth adding to your glossary of abbreviations. It stands for "as many rounds (or reps) as possible." For this burpee workout, your goal is to get through as many full burpees as you can in two minutes. Count your reps and try doing this workout once a week to track how much stronger (read: how many more reps you can do) over time.
Burpee HIIT Workout
If you haven't noticed by now, burpee workouts tend to be ~intense~. The goal of this one is to go all out by doing as many burpees as you can for 30 seconds at a 10 out of 10 on the effort scale, then resting for 30 seconds. That's one set. Strive for five!
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